Denver Public Schools this week fired a middle school principal who publicly raised concerns about the district’s educators being required to check students for weapons after a teen undergoing such a search shot two administrators at East High School in March.
DPS sent McAuliffe International School Principal Kurt Dennis a letter Monday informing him that his employment had been terminated, according to the document, which Dennis’s attorney provided to The Denver Post.
“After review, the district recognized that there were some leadership concerns at McAuliffe International,” DPS said in a statement Friday. “The termination had little to do with any media interview, but rather the sharing of confidential student information in violation of state and federal laws.”
After the East shooting, Dennis told 9News in a televised interview that McAuliffe administrators were performing daily weapon searches of students, including one student who the principal said was charged with attempted first-degree murder.
Dennis said at the time that he had asked DPS to require that student to take online classes, and that when the request was denied, he sought to expel the student — a request that also was denied by the district, according to the 9News report.
David Lane, the attorney representing Dennis, said his client has a First Amendment right to free speech and he plans to pursue legal action against the school district.
“We will draft a federal civil rights complaint and file it likely next week — and let the lawsuit commence,” Lane said, adding, “I have said if it’s a day in court that Denver Public Schools wants, I will hold the courthouse door open for them.”
Dennis did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
The East shooting spotlighted the use of student safety plans and revealed that DPS school administrators in some instances search pupils for weapons. The student who shot and wounded two East deans did so while undergoing a required search for weapons.
Since the shooting, a group of parents and educators have criticized DPS’s response to school safety and the district’s discipline policies, with some calling for students with significant disciplinary issues to be sent to alternative or virtual schools.
DPS officials previously have said they have a “moral obligation” to teach students — a stance Superintendent Alex Marrero recently reiterated in an opinion piece published in The Post.
The district launched an investigation into Dennis after his March 24 interview with 9News and Lane, the attorney, sent an email to the Board of Education in late April threatening legal action if the board took “any adverse employment action against” Dennis.
The school board was not involved in the termination of Dennis, according to DPS. Such a decision is considered “operational,” meaning it’s handled by district officials.
Dennis was fired for violating policies by repeatedly attempting to remove a student of color from McAuliffe despite district staff informing him that “removal was not available or appropriate,” according to the terminational letter.
The district also cited the 9News interview, saying it “created legal exposure” for the district under federal and state laws, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA.
The news story mentioned confidential documents that Dennis had access to as principal, such as a threat assessment report, and the disclosure of the information caused “the student to be singled out by faculty and staff and ostracized by his peers,” according to the letter.
The document also states that Dennis violated board policy by contacting a “diversion criminal justice officer” regarding the student and erroneously told them that the student could no longer attend McAuliffe because the student’s family moved out of the school’s boundary. (DPS policy doesn’t require a student to change schools under such scenarios, and, in fact, states students have a right to continue attending for the rest of the school year, according to the letter.)
The violations related to the specific student also were part of a larger pattern of actions that have occurred at McAuliffe under the principal’s leadership, the letter alleged.
In 2022, multiple complaints were filed by school and district employees alleging Dennis and other McAuliffe staff used inappropriate discipline against students with disabilities and failed to hire paraprofessionals to support special education students. An investigation found no policy violations, but “revealed concerns” about the principal’s failure to communicate and support special education programs, according to the letter.
Also in 2022, a student of color filed a complaint alleging Dennis racially discriminated against him by suspending him six times within seven months. An investigation found that the out-of-school suspensions “were implemented in an overly punitive manner” and that the school’s “overuse of out-of-school suspensions more generally was having (a) disparate impact on students of color,” according to the letter.
Another complaint was filed in January on behalf of a student of color based on disparate discipline based on race and disability and is still under investigation, according to the letter.
Get more Colorado news by signing up for our Mile High Roundup email newsletter.
